"Official" Apple Sept 2012 event discussion thread

More of an "S" release? Huh? This is the biggest single upgrade we've seen in the history of the iPhone. The 3G was a new, plastic [cheaper] case, 3G cell communication, and GPS. Nothing else changes from the original. The 3GS had a significantly improved camera and new CPU/GPU architecture. The 4 was a new case design and antenna, the retina display, an again significantly improved camera, a front-facing camera, newer GSM tech, and the A4, which used the same CPU/GPU architecture as the 3GS, but faster and more power efficient. 4S had yet another significantly improved camera, antenna improvements (technically started with the Verizon iPhone 4), still more GSM improvements, new CPU/GPU architecture, and Siri.

The 5? Bigger screen, new display tech, new case design, new CPU architecture (first on the market to use the A15 as best anyone can tell), significant GPU improvements, significant improvements to the camera's optics, a new connector, LTE, and even a better speaker. Every single major component is significantly improved compared to the 4S. Grips about lacking certain pet features, about Apple still having a relatively conservative design, or anything else. I'm disappointed that the vaunted new, biggest screen is just 170 extra vertical pixels with nothing else. But if you don't consider the 5 to be a major upgrade I'm wondering what needs to change to qualify as major?

The iPhone 5 IS an improvement all around. IMHO though its not a significant step forward in what the device is. The iPhone set the standard for smartphones, but now the competition has caught up. Faster CPU, nicer screen, better camera, any phone can take that crown away in 3 months. LTE? Other phones have it already. The case? Who cares? New earbuds? That's nice.

Think about PCs. What differentiates a PC from 2010 from a PC in 2012? Faster CPU, nicer screen, better GPU. For most people that PC from 2010 is sill fine and not that different from a PC in 2012.

Better is good. The iPhone 5 will do the same things the 4s does, but better. Some new features, but it doesn't really do anything that is different. Yes, the pass card app and maps. But maps was soooo 2008 on Android.

More of an "S" release? Huh? This is the biggest single upgrade we've seen in the history of the iPhone.

Don't mean to single you out -- you just summarized this whole argument well. But it's a bunk argument.

An "S" release? Don't be dumb. It's a new form factor. That is a big deal for Apple and no "S" release has had one.

The biggest single upgrade? Nope. That was the iPhone 4. The retina display was a game-changer in a way that nothing on the 5 is.

It's a substantial and very nice upgrade. More screen real estate in portrait mode where now you have ridiculously little when the keyboard is visible. More speed, which remains a sore spot for the iPhone even with the 4S. A gorgeous and well-engineered form factor. Continued improvements to what is already by far the best camera software. But it has no game changer, and it's not clear it needs one to compete.

Actually I really like the idea of a strap if you are using it as a remote. That way you can tie it so it doesn't "run off" from the couch.

I'm actually not opposed to the idea of the strap, even for general use. Not sure that Apple's implementation is too great, though... their strap attachment doesn't seem too secure (compare this to, say, the Wii Remote strap, which isn't coming off unless the whole thing breaks).

What about GPS accuracy? Location is in everything, why not lead the way with a carrier phase enabled GPS. Use the data connection for enhanced GPS accuracy. Get down to 10CM resolution.

For what purpose? If you have any exprience with GPS at that resolution you'd know how difficult it is to maintain it, the general methods are to use a base station at a known location and apply corrections based on that. But, for what? How does this solve any problem for the 99% of customers? 80%? 10%? 1%?

A lot of the comments remind me of when the iPhone was way behind the ball because of their lack of QR reading. Remember when those were going to change the world?

I agree that it's not groundbreaking, but it looks pretty freaking awesome and I'll be up early to pre-order. I'd consider the monumental releases to be the original iPhone and then the 4. That the 5 doesn't reach those levels ... isn't suprising to me.

Where is the list of countries and availability? I've googled and looked at Apple's website, but aside from the reference in the keynote, I can't find a list. And there is so much random stuff when I google "iPhone 5 thailand" that is pretty useless. :-)

For what purpose? If you have any exprience with GPS at that resolution you'd know how difficult it is to maintain it, the general methods are to use a base station at a known location and apply corrections based on that. But, for what? How does this solve any problem for the 99% of customers? 80%? 10%? 1%?

So yeah, probably not 10CM -- but 1-2M would still be an improvement -- I typically get 10-15M now I would guesstimate (based informally on checking the location of the corner of my yard now vs. official survey). Obviously not an assisted reference station -- but carrier phase and/or internet correction look-ups should still help.

Benefits? I don't know that I have a magical silver bullet in mind, but I can toss out a few thoughts*Pedestrian navigation -- in urban areas the accuracy definitely leaves room to be desired -- though some of this may also the the quality of the source data. This could be streetfront or inside malls (I've seen a few that already offer their own iPhone app, and GPS reception is available inside). *Augmented reality stuff -- if we need to locate the FOV vs. an online database 15M vs. 1M might be a make or break it ability (if we, were, viewing from the sidewalk to a building instead of down a street)

What percentage of customers would this server? No clue. I suspect initially it would be very low (more of an incremental thing like a speed bump - just "better") -- but if a killer application came out it could be a more significant paradigm shift. I do think it's representative of the type of things that would be more interesting than "10% faster, 10% more pixels, 10% more battery, 10% better camera, etc. Could be a non-starter for technical reasons I'm not aware of (I'm certainly not a hardware engineer) - but I wouldn't think it's too far off, especially when driven by iPhone scaling economies.

I consider edge -> 3G a fundamental bump (as it made thing functionally possible that weren't before - in a timely manner). 3G -> LTE not so much as I haven't seen anything that really sells me the benefit of that.

Well it provides wifi like speed and latency, combined with more speed from the device itself it can be a pretty big deal if you're using the phone for browsing a lot.

Depends on your view and usage I guess, A5 still isn't fast enough for my tastes so every CPU upgrade is a big deal for me. Plus if the hardware is more capable, the software will follow (leading to the next point).

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If the extra real estate let me run 2 apps side by side in landscape mode ('ala windows RT) - that would be a major change.

Not necessarily this specifically, but generally I'd agree that software advances would be a bigger deal at this point, barring crazy future/unforeseen hardware stuff. Like your GPS accuracy example is ultimately just another spec bump without the accompanying software to take full advantage of it.

Strangely, it's the lack of real camera improvements that makes upgrading from the 4S seem pointless.

Even though I have a Nikon D3 and lots of very nice glass sitting at home, I find that I use the iPhone for almost all my shots at the moment. If there had been a Pureview-type advance in the iPhone 5 camera, I would have been able to justify the upgrade. As it is, I am very happy with my 4S - can't see myself dumping all the investment in the iOS ecosystem, especially as I have an iPad as well. Wake me up when the iPhone 6 appears.

I watched about 15 minutes of liveblogging from the event last night (mainly the part covering the iPhone5 - iPods etc. I don't care about), and I have to say that I think the iPhone5 is possibly their most uninteresting spin on the iPhone series so far. The original iPhone brought an excellent capacitive touchscreen implementation - Apple's touchscreens remain probably the best I've ever used - and the 3G/GS speeded it all up. The iPhone4 brought a slinky new form-factor and better screen. The 4S brought Siri; an interesting and surprisingly effective natural speech recognition unit.

Then the iPhone5 last night.

-A bigger (and higher-ppi) screen, which, IMHO, actually makes it look faintly silly by stretching it out (it now looks like the phone equivalent of one of those Philips 21:9 TVs), as well as still being on the small side anyway. Again IMHO, I think they should've gone for an "all-screen" front, using as much of the front surface as possible. Additionally, the new screen res, according to the presentation, will require unmodified old apps to run letterboxed, which sounds like an incredibly stupid thing to do.

-Internally, it's all faster, but really, to what end ? Rear-view mirrors in racing games (incredibly, as demoed on-stage) ? Who gives a shit about that ? Additional speed is always welcome one way or another, but importantly, this is a severe catch-up response to quad-core Exynos, quintuple-core Tegra3 or just the sheer speed of the dual-core Snapdragons rather than anything truly new.

-Thinner and lighter. While technically impressive, in practical terms again, I think no-one really gives a shit there either. It's 2012 and phones are already so light there's nothing to them, so shaving off an additional couple of grams here and there amounts to relatively little.

-New dock connector - simultaneously requires you to buy adapters for any existing devices you have (more cost) for even mundane things like e.g. charging inside your car *and* doesn't support video-out, making it almost entirely pointless in one fell swoop. Thirdly it sidesteps a standard that everyone else uses (microUSB) for no apparent reason other than to be different, but which would be entirely adequate for the job anyway. In fact, Engadget are reporting a Lightning-microUSB adapter for £15 as of this morning given the EU's mandate that smartphones should all use microUSB anyway.

In all, even as an Android owner, there was absolutely nothing in there that made me sit up and take notice in a good way which all of the other Apple keynote stuff has done so far, one way or another. Nothing stood out as particularly innovative, or worse still, especially useful as an improvement over the 4S, to the point where I was having trouble stomaching the non-stop rhetoric from the presenters. Even the bigger screen, for the most part, pretty much only adds a single row of icons-worth to the display.

There's probably more I can't think of off the top of my head, but I was distinctly underwhelmed by the whole thing.

Strangely, it's the lack of real camera improvements that makes upgrading from the 4S seem pointless.

I think until we have more details about the phone we should probably reserve judgement. There are a lot of bullet point changes that could be either total non-events or really impactful, depending on how they play out in RL.

Personally I think 2X CPU and GPU is a fairly big deal; but I play a lot of games on my phone.

The slimness and lightness of the iPhone 5 combined with it's crazy high build quality is its defining feature.

Regular people care deeply about this stuff even (especially?) if they can't verbalize it. It has nothing to do with specs or feature checklists.

The iPhone has always been a lust-inducing object in a way that no other mass-produced consumer item is, and the new iPhone 5 is the best example of this yet.

It will sell in massive numbers.

Couldn't agree more. And we finally have an iPhone that fixes the lousy earphones, the giant dust-collecting dock connector and a bigger display. Next up: reduce the length without shrinking the display.

-A bigger (and higher-ppi) screen, which, IMHO, actually makes it look faintly silly by stretching it out (it now looks like the phone equivalent of one of those Philips 21:9 TVs), as well as still being on the small side anyway. Again IMHO, I think they should've gone for an "all-screen" front, using as much of the front surface as possible. Additionally, the new screen res, according to the presentation, will require unmodified old apps to run letterboxed, which sounds like an incredibly stupid thing to do.

It's not the res; it's the ratio. And, of course, that's until the app is updated. I would have loved a little added width personally, as that would have meant wider keys on the keyboard, bnut it's not that big a deal, and there would have been tradeoffs for making it fatter.

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-Internally, it's all faster, but really, to what end ? Rear-view mirrors in racing games (incredibly, as demoed on-stage) ? Who gives a shit about that ? Additional speed is always welcome one way or another, but importantly, this is a severe catch-up response to quad-core Exynos, quintuple-core Tegra3 or just the sheer speed of the dual-core Snapdragons rather than anything truly new.

This is really an example of one of the consequences of Apple not pre-announcing anything. Had they announced this chip when it was in development you would have had a much different experience of who's zooming who.

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-Thinner and lighter. While technically impressive, in practical terms again, I think no-one really gives a shit there either. It's 2012 and phones are already so light there's nothing to them, so shaving off an additional couple of grams here and there amounts to relatively little.

You wear baggy pants, don't you?

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-New dock connector - simultaneously requires you to buy adapters for any existing devices you have (more cost) for even mundane things like e.g. charging inside your car *and* doesn't support video-out, making it almost entirely pointless in one fell swoop. Thirdly it sidesteps a standard that everyone else uses (microUSB) for no apparent reason other than to be different, but which would be entirely adequate for the job anyway. In fact, Engadget are reporting a Lightning-microUSB adapter for £15 as of this morning given the EU's mandate that smartphones should all use microUSB anyway.

Apple will never use a standard plug. The dock adapter was a huge competitive advantage for them. Go look at the Apple accessory market vs. the Android accessory market. Using MicroUSB would give the competition access to that. Apple would want that why?

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In all, even as an Android owner, there was absolutely nothing in there that made me sit up and take notice in a good way which all of the other Apple keynote stuff has done so far, one way or another. Nothing stood out as particularly innovative, or worse still, especially useful as an improvement over the 4S, to the point where I was having trouble stomaching the non-stop rhetoric from the presenters. Even the bigger screen, for the most part, pretty much only adds a single row of icons-worth to the display.

There's probably more I can't think of off the top of my head, but I was distinctly underwhelmed by the whole thing.

I don't mean to come off as one of The Faithful here, but you kind of oversold this. It may not have been the second coming, but it is a huge upgrade.

*note: the info on the A6 is probably not accurate; check out the shipping device column

The last phones that had IR were Windows Mobile ones, so I don't see Apple adopting it.

ChrisB wrote:

I consider edge -> 3G a fundamental bump (as it made thing functionally possible that weren't before - in a timely manner). 3G -> LTE not so much as I haven't seen anything that really sells me the benefit of that.

I've gotten close to 60 mbit/s down on LTE. That's an order of magnitude faster than anything I've gotten on 3G.

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NFC would - if there were vendor infrastructure in place to use it (which there isn't, so doesn't bother me that it's missing).

Google Wallet.

wco81 wrote:

The original iPhone was a game changer. Made everyone else get on a crash course to develop capacitive touchscreen phones, instead of mimicking the Treo/Blackberry paradigm which was dominant at the time.

FTFY

japtor wrote:

ChrisB wrote:

I consider edge -> 3G a fundamental bump (as it made thing functionally possible that weren't before - in a timely manner). 3G -> LTE not so much as I haven't seen anything that really sells me the benefit of that.

Well it provides wifi like speed and latency, combined with more speed from the device itself it can be a pretty big deal if you're using the phone for browsing a lot.

-CPU - OK, fair enough. But as someone who doesn't e.g. game on his phone, I still don't really care too much about the A15 - there is, after all, only so fast you can flip through home screens, and rendering a web-page is often more a function of how fast you can download more than anything else. Once you hit "perceptibly smooth", my interest in having massive horsepower under the bonnet drops off sharply.

-Dock connector : you say that Apple wouldn't want to use standardised plugs, but what about you, personally ? Are you actually keen on buying adapters for stuff that only because Apple say you have to ? I noticed the other day that I've suddenly accumulated 3 or 4 USB mains adapters with microUSB on the end (and a couple of with just USB outputs, so you can plug in anything with USB of some description on the other), which comes in incredibly handy when I e.g. have friends staying who need to charge phones overnight etc. Hell, I even have a rechargeable flashlight with a microUSB connector on it. With Apple stuff, nope. Wouldn't happen.

-Dock connector : you say that Apple wouldn't want to use standardised plugs, but what about you, personally ? Are you actually keen on buying adapters for stuff that only because Apple say you have to ? I noticed the other day that I've suddenly accumulated 3 or 4 USB mains adapters with microUSB on the end (and a couple of with just USB outputs, so you can plug in anything with USB of some description on the other), which comes in incredibly handy when I e.g. have friends staying who need to charge phones overnight etc. Hell, I even have a rechargeable flashlight with a microUSB connector on it. With Apple stuff, nope. Wouldn't happen.

Me? Honestly it depends on the plug's physical properties. Not having to worry about plugging it in the right way is nice. I'll need to check one out in person before I can really judge.

Of course, I personally will need to buy exactly two adapters (or just replace one cord that's wearing out). Or I just may replace the speaker dock one of the adapters would be for (I've kind of wanted to do that anyway).

But as past iPod and iPhone user, what would MicroUSB get me? I don't have any of those laying around either.

Are there any good notes on what the new dock connector offers beyond a smaller form factor and the ability to plug it in in any direction?

I assume that Apple will release adapters for HDMI and Video out eventually. The note about the adapter seems to be a reflection of the adapter's ability to pass iPod control and video, not the connectors. Still a horrible message for anyone with a 'legacy dock' based device. My nice Bose sound dock may output music but it's own controls and remote are useless?

There is a paranoid part of me that thinks that Apple will take the stance that 'you only really need bluetooth and Airplay to get audio/video out.' and that will be that. of course that would beg the question: Why not just go with microUSB. Faster charging and reversibility aren't great selling points over 'use any cable/charger.'

-CPU - OK, fair enough. But as someone who doesn't e.g. game on his phone, I still don't really care too much about the A15 - there is, after all, only so fast you can flip through home screens, and rendering a web-page is often more a function of how fast you can download more than anything else. Once you hit "perceptibly smooth", my interest in having massive horsepower under the bonnet drops off sharply.

Not my feeling at all. I've noticed massive improvements in usability going from 3G -> 4 -> 4S, mostly related to CPU speed. But the 4S still struggles to render certain complicated webpages in a reasonable time. I would love a 2x CPU speed increase while browsing the web. (And also while gaming.)

ChrisG wrote:

-Dock connector : you say that Apple wouldn't want to use standardised plugs, but what about you, personally ? Are you actually keen on buying adapters for stuff that only because Apple say you have to ? I noticed the other day that I've suddenly accumulated 3 or 4 USB mains adapters with microUSB on the end (and a couple of with just USB outputs, so you can plug in anything with USB of some description on the other), which comes in incredibly handy when I e.g. have friends staying who need to charge phones overnight etc. Hell, I even have a rechargeable flashlight with a microUSB connector on it. With Apple stuff, nope. Wouldn't happen.

Have a look at an Apple charger. It has two parts: a tiny wall plug with a USB port, and a USB -> dock port cable. Get a USB -> micro USB cable and you can use the Apple charger to charge anything. We do this all the time while traveling with my wife's work Blackberry, because the Apple charger is so much easier to pack than the bulky RIM one.

So how will the whole iPhone pre-order thing go? This will be my first smartphone and will be switching to ATT from TMobile.

Has there been a time published yet when online pre-orders will actually start? I see that the physical stores will start at 8am. (edit) I see Sprint will start at 12am pacific, which means having to stay up past 2am

Can I pre-order it and then after receiving it start an account and switch my number over without going into a store?

Does the 'ship date' really mean the delivery date, and I should have it delivered to my work, or does it really ship out friday and I should have it delivered to my home on Saturday?

Some people think that Apple has to invent a new iPod/iPhone/iPad every iteration or they have failed. In the meantime, Apple is delivering an awesome platform for a huge app ecosystem to run on the fastest network. The others are competing too, so we have great options. Everyone should just buy the phone they want and be happy that at least this part of capitalism is working as advertised.

So how will the whole iPhone pre-order thing go? This will be my first smartphone and will be switching to ATT from TMobile.

Has there been a time published yet when online pre-orders will actually start? I see that the physical stores will start at 8am. (edit) I see Sprint will start at 12am pacific, which means having to stay up past 2am

Can I pre-order it and then after receiving it start an account and switch my number over without going into a store?

Does the 'ship date' really mean the delivery date, and I should have it delivered to my work, or does it really ship out friday and I should have it delivered to my home on Saturday?

if you're switching to tmobile you won't be pre-ordering. the phone will come locked to AT&T. you will be waiting 1-2 months for the unlocked model to come out and pay full price.

well, that's not completely true. Once you pay the $325 ETF I believe you can get the phone unlocked. So the 16gb phone will cost $200 + $325 = $525. A fully unlocked one is $650.

I talked to Verizon and they said 7am for over the phone, likely midnight for via the internet.

The iPhone 5 IS an improvement all around. IMHO though its not a significant step forward in what the device is. The iPhone set the standard for smartphones, but now the competition has caught up. Faster CPU, nicer screen, better camera, any phone can take that crown away in 3 months. LTE? Other phones have it already. The case? Who cares? New earbuds? That's nice.

Think about PCs. What differentiates a PC from 2010 from a PC in 2012? Faster CPU, nicer screen, better GPU. For most people that PC from 2010 is sill fine and not that different from a PC in 2012.

This is my exact thoughts and thats the analogy I always come up with. Once the rabbits out of the hat things tend to slow down in fundamental leaps. You see it in all areas of life. Movies, Music....Arcade Fire is doomed in terms of fundamental leaps(as is every band), you usually get 3 maybe 4 albums out and things really slow down for that genera. If you’re able to keep your audience interested after 5 albums then you’re doing an excellent job but make no mistakes things are never as exciting as the beginning.

People need to realize that these updates will continue to get less and less exciting as the years go on. What do people really think Apple is going to come up with thats going to really wow everyone? Apple isn't stupid, they are going to put enough updates in the phone to get people to buy it, but hold enough back so they have something for the next release. Im sure Apple already has a very good idea of what they want to do with the iPhone 6 let alone the next 5.

In all, even as an Android owner, there was absolutely nothing in there that made me sit up and take notice in a good way which all of the other Apple keynote stuff has done so far, one way or another. Nothing stood out as particularly innovative, or worse still, especially useful as an improvement over the 4S, to the point where I was having trouble stomaching the non-stop rhetoric from the presenters. Even the bigger screen, for the most part, pretty much only adds a single row of icons-worth to the display.

There's probably more I can't think of off the top of my head, but I was distinctly underwhelmed by the whole thing.

So they improved everything in the phone, but you are underwhelmed because you weren't made to sit up and take notice. But what would possible make you sit up and take notice?

I keep hearing from people who have Android devices complain that the iPhone is a failure because it isn't just like their S3. "If only Apple made everything just like the S3, then I would sit up and take notice". I don't get it. Apple's design ideas are a lot more about what they keep off then what they put in. The decided to buck the trend and not make a ginormous screen. They also improved significantly on the connector (just having it be reversible is a win for me). They made it faster, lighter, thinner, etc.

I'm honestly curious: what would have made you sit up and take notice? What would you imagine Apple could have possibly done to make you excited about this (or any) new phone?

Strangely, it's the lack of real camera improvements that makes upgrading from the 4S seem pointless.

I think until we have more details about the phone we should probably reserve judgement. There are a lot of bullet point changes that could be either total non-events or really impactful, depending on how they play out in RL.

Personally I think 2X CPU and GPU is a fairly big deal; but I play a lot of games on my phone.

For me this is a big deal even if I don't play games (though I never thought the current cpu was slow in games). I hate to have to wait for the camera app to be ready before I can take a picture or video. I also notice the time it takes for pictures to be "processed" for emails, edits, etc. All of this will be much faster.